Recent news coverage by the Presbyterian Outlook on the “Employee Covenant: Together in Transition” used by the Interim Unified Agency (IUA) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), now known as Presbyterian Life & Witness, in the termination of mission co-workers underscores the theological dangers of using covenantal language in employee policies. Language sets the tone for relationships within organizations, but in this case, requiring employees to sign a statement of “Accountability to the Covenant” that bars them from “publicly criticizing the missional or operational decisions of the IUA or its leadership” betrays the Reformed theological tradition.
The statement suggests the divine sanctioning of a particular action or policy, a pledge of loyalty to an institution and its leadership, and the silencing of dissent. At the heart of this controversy lie well-worn and debated ecclesiological and theological questions: Is there anything distinctive about the way the church conceives of and pursues its mission in relation to the surrounding culture? How do we, in times of transition, remain faithful to our true object of devotion — God alone?
Time is never neutral. We are living in an era when the integrity of the Reformed theological tradition is being criticized for providing the intellectual scaffolding for settler colonialism, the conquest of Indigenous peoples and lands, the transatlantic slave trade, and the Protestant work ethic.
Historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz discusses the Calvinist “cult of the covenant” as the founding myth of our nation in her book An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. Dunbar-Ortiz writes, “The principal conduit of the Hebrew scriptures and covenant ideology to European Christians was John Calvin, the French religious reformer whose teachings coincided with the advent of the European invasion and colonization of the Americas. The Puritans drew upon Calvinist ideology in founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony, as did the Dutch Calvinist settlers of the Cape of Good Hope in founding their South African colony during the same period … In accord with the doctrine of predestination, Calvin taught that human free will did not exist. Certain individuals are ‘called’ by God and are among the ‘elect.’”
As Reformed scholars and religious leaders, we don’t want to explain away or dismiss the importance of critiquing the role that Western Christian theology, and more specifically Reformed thought, has played in establishing racialized and gendered social hierarchies, colonization, conquest and the enslavement of Black peoples. We agree with many aspects of these critiques and support the way in which they are deepening and transforming White Christian self-understanding at a critical moment in our nation’s history.
Moreover, we believe that this kind of critique is essential to Reformed identity. And, at the same time, the Reformed theological tradition speaks prophetically against transactional concepts of covenant and insists upon the fallibility of human institutions.
God’s covenant is not a silencing contract, especially when injustice is being done.
God’s covenant is not a silencing contract, especially when injustice is being done. From a Reformed theological perspective, a covenant reflects the promissory relationship between God, the people and the planet Earth. Many Reformed theologians and ethicists have taken up questions about the church’s distinctive nature in relation to the true object of our devotion. Karl Barth and other theologians drafting The Barmen Declaration reminded us that no human authority is divinely ordained to have ultimate loyalty in our lives.
H. Richard Niebuhr emphasized in Christ and Culture that the task of Christianity is to transform institutions from within to reflect, to the best of their ability, God’s reign rather than the human proclivity to rule over others.
In Katie’s Canon, Katie Geneva Cannon warned against “hermeneutical distortions” that justify “biblical hermeneutics determined from above” and witnessed against the spiritualizing of scripture to justify enslavement, the subordination of Black women, and capitalism..
In the current political moment, as the integrity of the Reformed theological tradition is being questioned and loyalty oaths are regaining popularity, not just to a nation-state but to particular institutions and their leaders, how we respond and reflect theologically on our actions and clarify our mission matters for the church and the world. Dissent is too often dismissed as a distraction rather than seen as essential to collective discernment.
Signers listed in alphabetical order:
The Rev. Dr. Rubén Arjona
Associate Professor of Pastoral Care
Union Presbyterian Seminary
The Rev. Dr. Frances Taylor Gench
Member of the Presbytery of the James
Herbert Worth and Annie H. Jackson Professor of Biblical Interpretation
Union Presbyterian Seminary
The Rev. Dr. Dan González-Ortega
Co-Moderator, National Presbyterian Hispanic/Latino Caucus
The Rev. Dr. Elizabeth L. Hinson-Hasty
Member of Charlotte Presbytery
J. Roy Davis Family Chair of Theology and History
Union Presbyterian Seminary
Dr. David Jensen
Ruling Elder, Mission Presbytery
Professor in the Clarence N. and Betty B. Frierson Distinguished Chair of Reformed Theology
Austin Seminary
The Rev. Dr. L. Shannon Jung
Retired Professor and PC(USA) pastor
The Rev. Dr. Deborah Krause
Member of the Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy
President and Professor of New Testament
Eden Theological Seminary
Dr. Henry S. Kuo
Dean and Professor of Church Histories and Historical Theology
Eden Theological Seminary
Member of the Strategic Programme Planning Group
World Communion of Reformed Churches
The Rev. Dr. J. Clinton McCann, Jr.
Walter Brueggemann Evangelical Professor of Biblical Interpretation
Eden Theological Seminary
The Rev. Dr. Damayanthi Niles
Allen and Dottie Miller Professor of Mission and Peace
Professor of Constructive Theology
Eden Theological Seminary
The Rev. Dr. Raymond Roberts
Member of the Presbytery of the James
The Rev. Dr. Rubén Rosario Rodríguez, Ph.D.
Member of the Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy
Professor of Systematic Theology
Saint Louis University
The Rev. Dr. Aaron Stauffer
Member of Heartland Presbytery
The Rev. Dr. James Taneti
Teaching Elder and Commissioner from the James Presbytery
Assistant Professor of World Christianity
Union Presbyterian Seminary
The Rev. Dr. Derek Alan Woodard-Lehman
Director of the Miller Institute
Lecturer in Theology and Ethics
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
